OPINION: FOX News Double Standard On Terrorism

After the recent Fort Hood shootings, right wing pundits called for Muslims in the military to be investigated and in some cases barred from the military.

Imagine If an Arab or Islamic person with military training, who referred to himself as a terrorist and made several videos calling for the downfall of the U.S. government, was charged with raping a 7 year old? Can you imagine the uproar the Fox News would make? Now imagine that police found a grenade launcher in his house, connections to explosives dealers and bomb sniffing dogs determined that he was storing explosives. What if he said he joined the military for “training and (to) become one of those domestic terrorists that you’re so afraid of from the DHS reports.”

The problem is Charles Dyer, the man accused of raping a 7-year-old girl, isn’t Arab or Islamic. He is however, a self-proclaimed domestic terrorist closely who is charged with possessing a high powered grenade launcher stolen from a military facility. Dyer’s ideas and background are quite different than those of Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, but they are quite similar to those of notorious American domestic terrorists, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols.

For years, right wing, white supremacist extremists have been infiltrating the military. Two of the most famous right wing military veterans, Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh, were responsible for the biggest terrorist attack in the United States previous to 9/11, killing 168 people including small 19 children in an attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City.

Like McVeigh and Nichols, Dyer is a military veteran. Like McVeigh and Nicols, Dyer affiliated himself with the “Patriot Movement.” McVeigh, Nicols and Dyer all believed that state and federal agents are part of a conspiracy to strip Americans of their sovereign rights and believed that it was their duty to defend the constitution.

Dyers group, the Oathkeepers, were extremely against taxes, feared socialism, believed strongly in gun rights, defending the constitution and were closely tied to the militia movement and white supremacists, an ideology strikingly similar to that of McVeigh and Nichols.

The Oath Keepers are described by the SPLC as “particularly worrisome example” of a “virulently antigovernment ‘Patriot’ movement” that has been reinvigorated, in part, by the fact that the president is black. The group also views President Obama as an “enemy of the state.”

It is interesting, that with Glenn Beck and the Tea Party movement, the right wing, who are now so concerned with Islamic extremists in the military, are promoting the same ideals that the extremist terrorist duo of Nichols and McVeigh were fueled by.

Like many from the right, McVeigh was once a registered Republican member of the NRA and distributed gun rights literature. Like many people in the Tea Party movement, McVeigh was against taxes and big government. The following quotes attributed to McVeigh could easily have come from someone in the Tea Party movement, especially the Oath Keepers group that Dyer was a part of.

Taxes are a joke. Regardless of what a political candidate “promises,” they will increase. More taxes are always the answer to government mismanagement. They mess up. We suffer. Taxes are reaching cataclysmic levels, with no slowdown in sight… Is a Civil War Imminent? Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system? I hope it doesn’t come to that. But it might. Source

Go ahead, take everything I own; take my dignity. Feel good as you grow fat and rich at my expense; sucking my tax dollars and property. Source

The right wing ranting about socialist governments that we see from Fox News, Glenn Beck and teabaggers was also part of McVeigh’s rhetoric.

I believe we are slowly turning into a socialist government. The government is continually growing bigger and more powerful and the people need to prepare to defend themselves against government control. Source

I know in my heart that I am right in my struggle, Steve. I have come to peace with myself, my God and my cause. Blood will flow in the streets, Steve. Good vs. Evil. Free Men vs. Socialist Wannabe Slaves. Pray it is not your blood, my friend. Source

Now here are some quotes from Charles Dyer.

We come home and those bastards want to talk about how we’re domestic terrorists and a threat to this country. It makes me so angry,

Join the military?….Depends on what you want to do with it. Me? I’m going to use my training and become one of those domestic terrorists that you’re so afraid of from the DHS reports.”

I’m certainly not going to be hiding from my command anymore. I’m not hiding from ATF. Not hiding from FBI. Any organization. If they want to come get me I’m not going to be afraid. Source

Despite the warning signs that Dyer showed, he only got any media attention or the attention of law enforcement, after he was accused of raping a 7-year-old girl. He proclaimed himself a domestic terrorist on YouTube and attempted to recruit ex-military and police men into his movement. Despite the horrible crime he was accused of and his role in the popular Right-Wing Tea Party, he has received little attention from the mainstream media. Dyer was clearly influenced by Fox News, as he did a video segment on Fox News resident lunatic birther, Dr. Orly Taitz.

While Fox has been extremely anti-terror when it comes to Muslims, they turn a blind eye to the potential right wing terrorists in the in the mold of Timothy McVeigh that associate with the Fox News sponsored Tea Party events. McVeigh and Dyer were motivated by the same factors that are motivating the Fox news endorsed Tea Party movement: racism, a desire for guns, and a hatred for taxes and anything they perceive as socialism.

So how did the right responded to Timothy McVeigh? Ann Coultier said:

My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building. Source

At the time, Rush Limbaugh was very defensive about his role in McVeigh’s bombing. He said:

I want to go back to this show on April 24th of this year and–and remember at this time we’re–we’re about five days after the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. And we’re into this period of time where talk radio–and, of course, when you say talk radio what everybody thinks of is Rush Limbaugh–talk radio is responsible for this because of the extremist nature of the programs and it could inspire these lunatics to do what they did(sarcasm)…Source

To this day, Rush Limbaugh believes that Clinton blamed him for the Oklahoma bombing, despite the fact that Clinton never mentioned his name. Source

Bill Maher accused Fox Host Glenn Beck of using the same rhetoric that “made (McVeigh) blow up that building” on March 23, 2009. Source

Four months late, Beck would address the McVeigh issue, saying

If anyone thinks that it would be a good idea to turn violent, think again. It would destroy the Republic. They have awakened a sleeping giant. But just one lunatic like Timothy McVeigh could ruin everything that everyone has worked so hard for. Because these people in Washington won’t pass up the use of an emergency. Look how the media ran with the abortion doctor killing. They tried to pin that despicable act on Fox in general and specifically Bill O’Reilly and me. …I don’t want to ever hear from our own Americans, anyone voicing some sort of Muslim-extremist type justification. Source

Notice that Beck is not condemning violence, just asking his followers not to be violent so they don’t make him look bad in the eyes of the media. Still while distancing himself from violence, Beck is clearly attaching himself to the philosophies of McVeigh. In many ways, Beck is like the “radical” Islamic clerics who influence terrorists by preaching hate and fear without ever calling for violence directly.

So if we are going to be on the look out for possible extremist/terrorist types. We should not only check for Muslims who subscribe to radical Islam, but we should check for people who listen to Glenn Beck and Ann Coultier. Lunatics come from all sorts of religions, political parties and races. If we are going to profile for lunatics out of one background, we might as well start with the right wing. White supremacists have been infiltrating the military for some time now, according to the New York Times, and with a Black President, they pose more of a threat than ever.

After the Tennessee church shooting and the killing of Dr. Tiller, right wing pundits must realize their ability to influence people to turn violent. The fact that Rush Limbaugh gets to preach his anti-Obama hate on Armed Forces Radio to our soldiers is extremely frightening after what we saw McVeigh and Nichols did. We must be on guard from anybody in the military with anti-Government attitudes, whether they be influenced by radical Muslim clerics or radical right wing pundits.